


Good-Bye Yesterday

by CattaRegina



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 11:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CattaRegina/pseuds/CattaRegina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose has always been able to read Dirk well. So she thought. [Mermaid AU. Contains Dirk/Jake, and mentions of Rose/Kanaya.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good-Bye Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trinitykitteh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trinitykitteh/gifts).



> Warnings: Contains references to (potential) violence. Also, a little sad.
> 
> This is a gift for trinitykitteh for Giftstuck 2013. Happy holidays, and I hope you enjoy this story!

Dirk was good at hiding his thoughts, but Rose was better at reading them.

“Dirk,” she said, breaking the silence that had settled upon them over breakfast, and counted the moments until he responded. The twitch of the muscles in his forehead, the slight rotation of his head towards her, the sudden movement of the tail beneath the table: even without seeing his eyes he gave enough away.

Then he cocked his head and raised one eyebrow, ever so slightly. An acknowledgement of her ability? A challenge?

Rose needed more information.

 “When are you seeing him again?”

 Dirk became still – too still; it took him a moment longer to inhale again, and the relaxed arm he threw over the back of his chair revealed the muscles straining beneath. Rose knew what Dirk looked like when he was truly calm; this was but a facade. A well-crafted facade, but those were always revealed eventually.

She didn’t even try to mask curiosity as she peered at him over her drink, lips hovering over the faint opening that protected the liquid within from the watery atmosphere surrounding her. The best deception, came the thought brushing faintly at her consciousness, is the one that is believed by the deceiver.

What a trite thought.

“I don’t know yet.” Dirk shrugged nonchalantly – or so it might have seemed to someone else. “It’s too soon to plan anything.”

Verbally, he left it at that, but Rose caught him leaning forward slightly, engaged. Yes, he was playing her game after all.

“A week is too soon? Have I been doing it wrong all along?” Rose set down her cup and gave an amused smile, lips quirked upwards just enough to be noticeable. “I should be taking lessons from the master of dating advice. It seems I have much to learn.”  
  
“I wouldn’t call myself that. We’ll see.” Dirk settled back against his chair, shifting slightly. Discomfort from what? Rose rested her chin in her hands, elbows on the table.

“Despite all appearances, Dirk, I am not averse to gossip.”

 “I’m not averse to telling you.”  
  
“Your failure to do so could be considered otherwise.”

“Maybe I don’t consider breakfast to be the best time to discuss my relationship status.”

Rose forced down a stray tentacle that had begun playing with a lock of her hair. “Would lunch be better? I could check my schedule. I might have an opening today.”

“Mermaids do lunch dates now? That’s news to me.” Rose caught the slightest hint of a smile before it faded, Dirk’s expression becoming more steely than ever.

“All the more reason to start, wouldn’t you say?” Rose folded her hands beneath her on the table, producing a small, black notebook and a pen with each tentacle. “How is eleven-thirty for you?”  
  
But what had passed for playfulness in Dirk’s tone had already disappeared.

“Sorry, Rose, I’ve got plans. Not with Jake,” he added quickly, floating upwards from the table. “There are some other things I need to do.”

Well, she couldn’t push for dinner _now_. But that wouldn’t be a problem.

“Very well,” she said, turning her gaze back to her abandoned cup, “if you do find yourself with a free hour, you know where to find me.”

Rose waited until Dirk left the room before letting herself smile.

 

-

 

Rose had only just floated back from the fully set stone table when the strands of seaweed serving as the door to her cave brushed her cheek. Dirk appeared in the entrance a moment later.

“I didn’t think I’d mentioned I was free to meet for dinner,” Rose commented, injecting an air of casualness into her voice as she seated herself at the table, opposite the door. “There might have been things I needed to do.”

“Rose, I got the invitation.” Dirk settled himself across from her, tail curled underneath him in the low chair, but made no move to reach for the food. “There’s no need to keep this up.”

“Keep what up? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Would you like some bread?” Rose offered the basket with one tentacle.

 “I’m good.” Dirk shifted forward, arms folded in front of him. “Rose. I hate to bring this up, but I think you know what I’m here about.”  
  
“Not for a gourmet dinner, I take it.” Rose placed the basket on the ground. “That’s unfortunate. I’ve been practicing.”

“As I hear it, that’s not the only thing you’ve tried your hand at.”  
  
His eyes were on her – Rose thought – but it felt as if he were looking beyond her, at the back of her cave. Rose became aware of the empty space at her back - colourful glass bottles lining shelves of rock carved out of the walls; half-open chests overflowing with fabrics and jars, cloths and boxes, tucked under a table; the ballooning of the blanket pinned down on its corners with rocks, failing to hide the burst of warm water beneath it. Not things ordinary merpeople would have. At best, human-made, a rarity in itself. At worst…

“I wouldn’t have thought human-owned objects would surprise you, Dirk. Did you visit Jake today?”  
  
Dirk nearly gave a start; Rose’s eye twitched with self-satisfaction at noticing. “I told you, I had other plans today.”  
  
“To meet me, evidently. Wine?” She proffered a bottle with one tentacle. “I can’t say if it’s a particularly good one; I’ve never been able to ask.”  
  
“I’m not here for dinner, Rose.”

“It wouldn’t have been polite of me to cut to the chase, would it?” With a faint sigh, Rose copied Dirk’s pose, leaning forward, but supporting her head with a tentacle. “But I did offer an invitation, and it wasn’t to dinner.”  
  
“You know why I’m here. I appreciate the courtesies, but at this point, can’t we just discuss business?” Dirk straightened his glasses with one finger, giving Rose what she read as a stern look behind them.

“If you must call it business, would ‘family business’ not be more-”

 “Sure. Family business. I don’t really care what you call it – I just want to know if you’re in for this.”  
  
“For what, Dirk?”  
  
“Rose…” Dirk gave a faint shake of his head, still watching her intently. “When you disappeared thirteen years ago, you were with humans. You must have found a way to stay on land for weeks at a time.”  
  
“Months, actually.”  
  
“Maybe even longer, for all I know. But you found a way.”  
  
“Are you asking me for that method? I didn’t know your relationship was that serious. Does Jake know?”  
  
“He knows what he needs to.”

“You should tell him first.”  
  
“Does that mean you won’t do it?”  
  
Rose opened her mouth to respond, and for the first time in a long while, she didn’t know what to say.

Shouldn’t this be a challenge much like any other?  
  
“If you go through with this,” Rose finally said, careful to keep the shakiness out of her voice, “it will not be easy to return.”  
  
“I’m willing to accept the consequences.” Normal movements from Dirk. No, she must not be paying enough attention; she must be missing something.

“If I give this to you, there is only one way to become yourself again.”  
  
“To become a merman, you mean.”  
  
Rose took a deep breath. “Precisely. Otherwise, you’re stuck. That is, if you survive. That’s not a guarantee.”  
  
“How good a chance do I have?”  
  
“It’s up to you. Fulfill your goal for becoming human-” she couldn’t quite smooth her voice well enough over those words, but Dirk gave no sign of noticing, “and you will remain one. If you don’t…”  
  
“You said there was a way out?”  
  
 Rose forced her tentacles away from their grip on the base of the table, focusing on keeping them still. That was the problem with tentacles; you had too many to keep proper track of. “A method of destroying your reason for being there in the first place.”

“If I want something enough to become human for it, why would I want to destroy it?”

“Things… don’t always go as planned, Dirk.” Rose straightened from the table, turning her back to a still-seated Dirk as she drifted towards the back of the cave. “For instance, you might actually find yourself missing us.”  
  
“I probably would,” Dirk agreed, sounding sincere to Rose’s ears. It wasn’t as easy to tell without looking at him, but sometimes, having one’s back turned had its own advantages. “Doesn’t mean I’m going to back out.”

“I won’t pretend I know what will happen in the future.” Rose pushed aside some green and gold glass bottles, flicking out a tentacle to catch those that fell off the crowded shelf. “However, I can, at least, speak from experience, can’t I?”

Dirk was silent as Rose’s fingers clenched around a tiny, clear bottle covered in algae in a corner of the shelf.

Bottle tightly in hand, Rose drifted back towards Dirk. As she passed one of the overflowing chests, however, she paused. Bending underneath the table, Rose opened the lid as far as she could, and rummaged through the contents with her free hand, digging through fabrics and knick-knacks. She could feel Dirk’s eyes on her, the quiet but for the stir of her movements making it nearly difficult to breathe.

When she returned to the table, she placed the bottle on the table, and next to it, an elongated shape wrapped in a dark red strip of cloth. Dirk made no move to take either; he looked up at Rose instead, almost inquisitively.

“One drop of this should be sufficient. You should take it near land.”  
  
“How should I get it back to you?” Dirk asked.  
  
“I won’t need it again. It… You might experience some pain.”

“That sounds like an understatement.”  
  
Rose took another deep breath. “You’ll have to judge for yourself whether this is worth the pain.”  
  
Dirk reached over the table to take the bottle. As his fingers wrapped around it, Rose placed a hand over his. Her other fingers began to unwrap the other object.

“Take this with you,” she began as the cloth fell away to reveal a knife. With her free hand she slid it into his. “Consider it insurance.”  
  
“I won’t need it, Rose.” He let go of the knife; she tightened her grip on his hand, pushing the sheathed blade back into his palm.

“For me, then. A memento of the family you won’t miss enough to return to.”

 She punctuated the sentence with a smile; Dirk did not respond. He tucked the knife away with a stony expression, and Rose wondered with an increasing queasiness how sincere he must have been to show no trace of doubt.

As Dirk rose to leave, however, he turned back one last time, watching Rose for a moment as if trying to remember something.

“Rose,” he finally asked, “if this is permanent, how did you change back?”  
  
Rose’s fingers clenched the strip of cloth on the table, fingernails digging into her palm.

“I’ve got other things I need to do,” she said instead.

 

-

 

Once Dirk had left, Rose carefully folded the sash and tucked it back into the chest below the table, and tried not to think about the smooth, rounded glass her fingers had touched as she had searched for the knife.

You shouldn’t, she told herself. Not even for Dirk. You don’t want to know.

Yes, she wanted to know what happened with Dirk. He was family.

Do you think you could avoid the temptation? Could you really keep yourself from looking? To know what became of her?

Yes, Rose told herself, yes, she could. That was a lifetime ago.

 

-

 

“You know, Dirk, I’ve been thinking a little, and…” Jake shoved his hands into the pockets of his shorts, then removed them and crossed his arms across his chest. Standing on a lower rock below him, Dirk didn’t even move a muscle. “It’s really great that you’ve come here and all, it really is! It’s definitely a lot easier to have adventures and, er… I guess you could call it fisticuffs without that tail of yours! It got in the way a lot.”  
  
“Thanks.” Dirk steadied himself with one hand and scrambled onto a rock next to Jake’s, ungainly flailing contrasting sharply with his poise when standing still. Three days had not been enough time to adjust to an entirely new way of moving, even for him. “It’s definitely a big change, but I think I like it so far.”  
  
“About that. Yes. Dirk, you’re planning to stay for a while, aren’t you?”

Behind his glasses, Dirk’s eyes strayed momentarily to the ocean in front of them. “That remains to be seen.”

“And it really is good to have you here! It’s not that I’ve been _lonely_ , but – well.” Jake unfolded his arms to remove his glasses and rubbed at them vigorously with a piece of cloth produced from one of his pockets. “I’ve had some company, but it’s awfully hard to do things in the same way with them.”  
  
“That’s one way of putting it.” If by ‘do things’ Jake meant ‘be a person and not a piece of paper attached to Jake’s wall’. There were plenty of things Dirk could think of doing that a piece of paper couldn’t. “Jake. You said you were thinking about something?”  
  
“It’s a little tough to bring up, yes…” Jake turned away from Dirk for a moment, watching the sun rest on the ocean horizon in front of them. The sky was streaked with yellow, the colours only just beginning to fade into something darker. “I suppose I should just bite the bullet and ask you, shouldn’t I…”  
  
“Sure. Go ahead.” Dirk clambered onto Jake’s rock, pulling himself onto the smooth expanse of stone that marked the very top of the hill they’d climbed. “Ask away.”

“Yes, um. Dirk… We’re friends, aren’t we?”  
  
“I’d say we’re friends, yeah.”

 “And there’s no question I’d be thrilled to host you for as long as you’d like to stay here! I should check on how much food is in the fridge, but I think it’ll be okay- gosh, I’m blabbering on, aren’t I – Dirk – I guess what I’m trying to ask you is-”

 Shoving his hands into his pockets, which Jake promptly mimicked, Dirk said, “It’s okay, Jake. I think I know what you mean. And yeah. That sounds good to me.”

It might have just been the time of day, but to Dirk, Jake’s grin was brighter than the sun.

 

-

 

In the light of the setting sun, fading to dusk, Dirk threw the knife Rose had given him into the ocean, as far as he could. It sank with barely a ripple.

 When the light finally faded into dusk, Rose wrapped the crystal in the sash, rearranging the fabric to hide the stain on it as carefully as possible. This time, she closed the chest.

 Perhaps she’d find the knife tomorrow. Just in case.


End file.
